


Dancing with the Daffodils

by greerwatson



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Backstory, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6056199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts of the charming Mrs Odell threaten to get between the new vicar and his sermon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing with the Daffodils

**_In the spring a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love...._ **

No one mentions an old man’s fancy.  (Not that he was _old_ , of course, but definitely middle-aged.)  It was spring, though.  The flowers decorating the church were daffodils and narcissus, in their various shades of ivory and gold, with cut branches of blossom and a few early tulips.  The true sign that spring was here:  gardens ready for plunder by the Flower Committee. 

He took the few steps up the carved wooden pulpit, fishing in his pocket for the small sheaf of notes for his sermon.  With these laid in front of him, he looked out over the congregation.  The church was not as full as it had been before the war:  there were fewer young faces.  Still, the faithful cleaved to their place of worship the more closely in this time of trouble.

Mrs Ellison separated her boys by their shoulders and twisted young Joey round to sit properly.  It caught his eye.  Then, lest he embarrass her by seeming to glare when she clearly had it in hand, he looked over quickly to the nearest pot of flowers.  Daffodils, mostly yellow ones.  He wondered whose turn it had been this week.  His late wife would have known, of course.  He thought it was ... he rather thought it was....

He looked at the Widow Odell, her hands folded in her lap, and then quickly down at his notes to steady himself; and, when he began the sermon, his fixed his eye firmly on the glass saints in the south aisle windows.  Of course, as he continued, he made sure to look in turn at members of the congregation to personalize his message.  Still, he was careful not to look again in _her_ direction.  He had done so last week and nearly lost his place in the sermon.

The Widow Odell ... what an old-fashioned way to refer to her.  And not entirely accurate, he had to admit:  he knew about the divorce.  When they had first moved here, he had naturally assumed that she had lost her husband, as like as not in the Great War; but some goodwife of the Women’s Institute had made sure that Marjorie learned the truth.  By all accounts, Michael Odell had treated his poor little wife rather badly; and, in _his_ opinion, she had been well rid of him.  Of course, the man had later died:  still, by rights, that did not make her _quite_ truly the ‘Widow Odell’.  Nevertheless, he preferred to think of her that way.  (He was, he supposed, the ‘Widower Straike’, though it was not a usual mode of address for a man, past or present.)

In the porch, he shook hands as people left, saying a few words with most of them.  Then she came out, one of the last, neat in her blue coat, her old hat refurbished with a little feather that had not, he was sure, been tucked in the band last week.  (He had rarely noticed his wife’s clothes.  Marjorie had not expected it.)  He beamed, and received back a demure little smile that reached the eyes.  Her hand was small and tender in its shabby kid; and he held it—he _feared_ he held it—a moment too long.

“Have you heard from your son?” he asked.  Her only lamb (with all that entailed of a mother’s fond love) was stationed in France.  He had met the lad on his embarkation leave:  a pleasant young chap down from Oxford a year shy of his degree in order to serve his country.  One could only hope that this phony war continued till peace, for his mother’s sake, and the sake of all the mothers of the parish, and all the mothers of England. 

Once the last of the congregation passed through the lych-gate, he walked down to make sure it was properly latched.  Along the lane to the right, he could just see the back of her coat, with its little central pleat caught by a button at the waist, the skirt slightly flared.  It suited her, he thought.  The blue was just right to bring out the fading auburn of her hair.  So little grey, he marvelled, knowing his own pate was now well silvered.  (Well, she must have been married and a mother at so young an age, after all.)

He set the latch firm.  By the gatepost there were more daffodils blooming—not truly wild, he knew, but likely planted a century before or drifted from a garden down the lane.  They looked so gay and fresh in the cool spring sun.  It was a lovely day ... a truly _lovely_ day.  The sap was rising, the buds were on the trees, the birds were nesting, and the daffodils were blooming.  This new year was going to be a good year, he could tell.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written (albeit belatedly) for the [maryrenaultfics](http://maryrenaultfics.livejournal.com) LiveJournal community's Sunday Tea Challenge of 1 April 2012 to the prompt “rising sap”. The story was posted on 16 April.


End file.
